A look at cross-chain swaps

Almost thirteen years have passed since the launch of Bitcoin during which hundreds of other blockchains have appeared. Smart contract platforms have been the most successful, hosting multi-billion dollar ecosystems. These platforms can be divided into two categories: EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible and incompatible. EVM compatibility is crucial for the rapid development of ecosystems, as it allows developers to use already familiar toolkits for writing smart contracts.

However, even EVM-compatible blockchains do not have a built-in mechanism to link these fragmented ecosystems. For blockchains with other VMs or without smart contracts, the situation is even worse since, for a long time, centralized exchanges were the main link between them. With the advent of cross-chain bridges, everything changed. These cross-chain bridges allow users to lock assets on one blockchain and release their wrapped versions onto another.